One of the major problems facing human society is the disposal of organic solid waste produced by human activities. This organic solid waste may contain harmful chemicals or pathogenic microorganisms. The release of organic solid waste into the environment without any treatment can cause serious environmental issues and even diseases to human beings.
Currently, landfill, incineration, and biological digestion (mostly under anaerobic conditions) are the common methods for organic solid waste disposal. The methods of landfilling and incinerating organic solid waste are cheap but cause environmental issues. For instance, the landfill of waste sewage can cause wind-blown litter, attraction of vermin, and generation of liquid leachate. The incineration of waste sewage causes emission of gaseous pollutants.
The method of using anaerobic digestion of organic solid waste can generate methane-containing biogas that may be used to produce electricity. However, this method requires a lengthy time requirement in the range of 20 to 30 days. Further, this method induces a high capital cost, which makes this method not economical. In some instances, the disposal of waste activated sludge represents 30-40% of the total capital cost and about 50% of the operating cost of many wastewater treatment facilities.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an improved method and system of treating organic solid waste. There is a further need for an improved method and system of producing algal biomass and products from organic solid materials.